There are two marine fuel oil types, distillate based marine fuel oil, and residual based marine fuel oil. Distillate based marine fuel oil, also known as Marine Gas Oil (MGO) or Marine Diesel Oil (MDO) comprises petroleum fractions separated from crude oil in a refinery via a distillation process. Gasoil (also known as medium diesel) is a petroleum distillate intermediate in boiling range and viscosity between kerosene and lubricating oil containing a mixture of C10-19 hydrocarbons. Gasoil is used to heat homes and is used for heavy equipment such as cranes, bulldozers, generators, bobcats, tractors and combine harvesters. Generally maximizing gasoil recovery from residues is the most economic use of the materials by refiners because they can crack gas oils into valuable gasoline and distillates. Diesel oils are very similar to gas oils with diesel containing predominantly contain a mixture of C10-19 hydrocarbons, which include approximately 64% aliphatic hydrocarbons, 1-2% olefinic hydrocarbons, and 35% aromatic hydrocarbons. Marine Diesels may contain up to 15% residual process streams, and optionally up to no more than 5% volume of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (asphaltenes). Diesel fuels are primarily utilized as a land transport fuel and as blending component with kerosene to form aviation jet fuel.
Residual based fuels oils or Heavy Marine Fuel Oil (HMFO) comprises a mixture of process residues—the fractions that don't boil or vaporize even under vacuum conditions, and have an asphaltene content between 3 and 20 percent by weight (% wt.). Asphaltenes are large and complex polycyclic hydrocarbons with a propensity to form complex and waxy precipitates. Once asphaltenes have precipitated out, they are notoriously difficult to re-dissolve and are described as fuel tank sludge in the marine shipping industry and marine bunker fueling industry.
Large ocean-going ships have relied upon HMFO to power large two stroke diesel engines for over 50 years. HMFO is a blend of aromatics, distillates, and residues generated in the crude oil refinery process. Typical streams included in the formulation of HMFO include: atmospheric tower bottoms (i.e. atmospheric residues), vacuum tower bottoms (i.e. vacuum residues) visbreaker residue, FCC Light Cycle Oil (LCO), FCC Heavy Cycle Oil (HCO) also known as FCC bottoms, FCC Slurry Oil, heavy gas oils and delayed cracker oil (DCO), polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons, reclaimed land transport motor oils and small portions (less than 20% by volume) of cutter oil, kerosene or diesel to achieve a desired viscosity. HMFO has an aromatic content higher than the marine distillate fuels noted above. The HMFO composition is complex and varies with the source of crude oil and the refinery processes utilized to extract the most value out of a barrel of crude oil. The mixture of components is generally characterized as being viscous, high in sulfur and metal content, and high in asphaltenes making HMFO the one product of the refining process that has a per barrel value less than the feedstock crude oil itself.
Industry statistics indicate that about 90% of the HMFO sold contains 3.5 weight % sulfur. With an estimated total worldwide consumption of HMFO of approximately 300 million tons per year, the annual production of sulfur dioxide by the shipping industry is estimated to be over 21 million tons per year. Emissions from HMFO burning in ships contribute significantly to both global air pollution and local air pollution levels.
MARPOL, the International Convention for the Prevention of Pollution from Ships, as administered by the International Maritime Organization (IMO) was enacted to prevent pollution from ships. In 1997, a new annex was added to MARPOL; the Regulations for the Prevention of Air Pollution from Ships—Annex VI to minimize airborne emissions from ships (SOx, NOx, ODS, VOC) and their contribution to air pollution. A revised Annex VI with tightened emissions limits was adopted in October 2008 having effect on 1 Jul. 2010 (hereafter referred to as Annex VI (revised) or simply Annex VI).
MARPOL Annex VI (revised) established a set of stringent emissions limits for vessel operations in designated Emission Control Areas (ECAs). The ECAs under MARPOL Annex VI (revised) are: i) Baltic Sea area—as defined in Annex 1 of MARPOL—SOx only; ii) North Sea area—as defined in Annex V of MARPOL—SOx only; iii) North American—as defined in Appendix VII of Annex VI of MARPOL—SOx, NOx and PM; and, iv) United States Caribbean Sea area—as defined in Appendix VII of Annex VI of MARPOL—SOx, NOx and PM.
Annex VI (revised) was codified in the United States by the Act to Prevent Pollution from Ships (APPS). Under the authority of APPS, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (the EPA), in consultation with the United States Coast Guard (USCG), promulgated regulations which incorporate by reference the full text of MARPOL Annex VI (revised). See 40 C.F.R. § 1043.100(a)(1). On Aug. 1, 2012 the maximum sulfur content of all marine fuel oils used onboard ships operating in US waters/ECA cannot exceed 1.00% wt. (10,000 ppm) and on Jan. 1, 2015 the maximum sulfur content of all marine fuel oils used in the North American ECA was lowered to 0.10% wt. (1,000 ppm). At the time of implementation, the United States government indicated that vessel operators must vigorously prepare for the 0.10% wt. (1,000 ppm) US ECA marine fuel oil sulfur standard. To encourage compliance, the EPA and USCG refused to consider the cost of compliant low sulfur fuel oil to be a valid basis for claiming that compliant fuel oil was not available for purchase. For the past five years there has been a very strong economic incentive to meet the marine industry demands for low sulfur HMFO, however technically viable solutions have not been realized. There is an on-going and urgent demand for processes and methods for making a low sulfur HMFO that is compliant with MARPOL Annex VI emissions requirements.
Because of the ECAs, all ocean-going ships which operate both outside and inside these ECAs must operate on different marine fuel oils to comply with the respective limits and achieve maximum economic efficiency. In such cases, prior to entry into the ECA, a ship is required to fully change-over to using the ECA compliant marine fuel oil, and to have onboard implemented written procedures on how this is to be undertaken. Similarly change-over from using the ECA compliant fuel oil back to HMFO is not to commence until after exiting the ECA. With each change-over it is required that the quantities of the ECA compliant fuel oils onboard are recorded, with the date, time and position of the ship when either completing the change-over prior to entry or commencing change-over after exit from such areas. These records are to be made in a logbook as prescribed by the ship's flag State, absent any specific requirement the record could be made, for example, in the ship's Annex I Oil Record Book.
The Annex VI (revised) also sets global limits on sulfur oxide and nitrogen oxide emissions from ship exhausts and particulate matter and prohibits deliberate emissions of ozone depleting substances, such as hydro-chlorofluorocarbons. Under the revised MARPOL Annex VI, the global sulfur cap for HMFO was reduced to 3.50% wt. effective 1 Jan. 2012; then further reduced to 0.50% wt, effective 1 Jan. 2020. This regulation has been the subject of much discussion in both the marine shipping and marine fuel bunkering industry. Under the global limit, all ships must use HMFO with a sulfur content of not over 0.50% wt. The IMO has repeatedly indicated to the marine shipping industry that notwithstanding availability of compliant fuel or the price of compliant fuel, compliance with the 0.50% wt. sulfur limit for HMFO will occur on 1 January 2020 and that the IMO expects the fuel oil market to solve this requirement. There has been a very strong economic incentive to meet the international marine industry demands for low sulfur HMFO, however technically viable solutions have not been realized. There is an on-going and urgent demand for processes and methods for making a low sulfur HMFO that is compliant with MARPOL Annex VI emissions requirements.
IMO Regulation 14 provides both the limit values and the means to comply. These may be divided into methods termed primary (in which the formation of the pollutant is avoided) or secondary (in which the pollutant is formed but removed prior to discharge of the exhaust gas stream to the atmosphere). There are no guidelines regarding any primary methods (which could encompass, for example, onboard blending of liquid fuel oils or dual fuel (gas/liquid) use). In secondary control methods, guidelines (MEPC.184(59)) have been adopted for exhaust gas cleaning systems; in using such arrangements there would be no constraint on the sulfur content of the fuel oils as bunkered other than that given the system's certification. For numerous technical and economic reasons, secondary controls have been rejected by major shipping companies and not widely adopted in the marine shipping industry. The use of secondary controls is not seen as practical solution by the marine shipping industry.
Primary Control Solutions:
A focus for compliance with the MARPOL requirements has been on primary control solutions for reducing the sulfur levels in marine fuel components prior to combustion based on the substitution of HMFO with alternative fuels. However, the switch from HMFO to alternative fuels poses a range of issues for vessel operators, many of which are still not understood by either the shipping industry or the refining industry. Because of the potential risks to ships propulsion systems (i.e. fuel systems, engines, etc.) when a ship switches fuel, the conversion process must be done safely and effectively to avoid any technical issues. However, each alternative fuel has both economic and technical difficulties adapting to the decades of shipping infrastructure and bunkering systems based upon HMFO utilized by the marine shipping industry.
LNG:
The most prevalent primary control solution in the shipping industry is the adoption of LNG as a primary or additive fuel to HMFO. An increasing number of ships are using liquified natural gas (LNG) as a primary fuel. Natural gas as a marine fuel for combustion turbines and in diesel engines leads to negligible sulfur oxide emissions. The benefits of natural gas have been recognized in the development by IMO of the International Code for Ships using Gases and other Low Flashpoint Fuels (the IGF Code), which was adopted in 2015. LNG however presents the marine industry with operating challenges including: on-board storage of a cryogenic liquid in a marine environment will require extensive renovation and replacement of the bunker fuel storage and fuel transfer systems of the ship; the supply of LNG is far from ubiquitous in major world ports; updated crew qualifications and training on operating LNG or duel fuel engines will be required prior to going to sea.
Sulfur Free Bio-Fuels:
Another proposed primary solution for obtaining compliance with the MARPOL requirements is the substitution of HMFO with sulfur free bio-fuels. Bio-diesel has had limited success in displacing petroleum derived diesel however supply remains constrained. Methanol has been used on some short sea services in the North Sea ECA on ferries and other littoral ships. The wide spread adoption of bio-fuel, such as bio-diesel or methanol, present many challenges to ship owners and the bunker fuel industry. These challenges include: fuel system compatibility and adaptation of existing fuel systems will be required; contamination during long term storage of methanol and biodiesel from water and biological contamination; the heat content of methanol and bio-diesel on a per ton basis is substantially lower than HMFO; and methanol has a high vapor pressure and presents serious safety concerns of flash fires.
Replacement of Heavy Fuel Oil with Marine Gas Oil or Marine Diesel:
A third proposed primary solution is to simply replace HMFO with marine gas oil (MGO) or marine diesel (MDO). The first major difficulty is the constraint in global supply of distillate materials that make up over 90% vol of MGO and MDO. It is reported that the effective spare capacity to produce MGO is less than 100 million metric tons per year resulting in an annual shortfall in marine fuel of over 200 million metric tons per year. Refiners not only lack the capacity to increase the production of MGO, but they have no economic motivation because higher value and higher margins can be obtained from ultra-low sulfur diesel fuel for land-based transportation systems (i.e. trucks, trains, mass transit systems, heavy construction equipment, etc.).
Blending:
Another primary solution is the blending of HMFO with lower sulfur containing fuels such as low sulfur marine diesel (0.1% wt. sulfur) to achieve a Product HMFO with a sulfur content of 0.5% wt. In a straight blending approach (based on linear blending) every 1 ton of HSFO (3.5% sulfur) requires 7.5 tons of MGO or MDO material with 0.1% wt. S to achieve a sulfur level of 0.5% wt. HMFO. One of skill in the art of fuel blending will immediately understand that blending hurts key properties of the HMFO, specifically viscosity and density are substantially altered. Further a blending process may result in a fuel with variable viscosity and density that may no longer meet the requirements for a HMFO.
Further complications may arise when blended HMFO is introduced into the bunkering infrastructure and shipboard systems otherwise designed for unblended HMFO. There is a real risk of incompatibility when the two fuels are mixed. Blending a mostly paraffinic-type distillate fuel (MGO or MDO) with a HMFO having a high aromatic content often correlates with poor solubility of asphaltenes. A blended fuel is likely to result in the precipitation of asphaltenes and/or highly paraffinic materials from the distillate material forming an intractable fuel tank sludge. Fuel tank sludge causes clogging of filters and separators, transfer pumps and lines, build-up of sludge in storage tanks, sticking of fuel injection pumps (deposits on plunger and barrel), and plugged fuel nozzles. Such a risk to the primary propulsion system is not acceptable for a cargo ship in the open ocean.
Lastly blending of HMFO with marine distillate products (MGO or MDO) is not economically feasible. A blender will be taking a high value product (0.1% S marine gas oil (MGO) or marine diesel (MDO)) and blending it 7.5 to 1 with a low value high sulfur HMFO to create a final IMO/MARPOL compliant HMFO (i.e. 0.5% wt. S Low Sulfur Heavy Marine Fuel Oil—LSHMFO). It is expected that LSHMFO will sell at a lower price on a per ton basis than the value of the two blending stocks alone.
Processing of Residual Oil.
For the past several decades, the focus of refining industry research efforts related to the processing of heavy oils (crude oils, distressed oils, or residual oils) has been on upgrading the properties of these low value refinery process oils to create lighter oils with greater value. The challenge has been that crude oil, distressed oil and residues can be unstable and contain high levels of sulfur, nitrogen, phosphorous, metals (especially vanadium and nickel) and asphaltenes. Much of the nickel and vanadium is in difficult to remove chelates with porphyrins. Vanadium and nickel porphyrins and other metal organic compounds are responsible for catalyst contamination and corrosion problems in the refinery. The sulfur, nitrogen, and phosphorous, are removed because they are well-known poisons for the precious metal (platinum and palladium) catalysts utilized in the processes downstream of the atmospheric or vacuum distillation towers.
The difficulties treating atmospheric or vacuum residual streams has been known for many years and has been the subject of considerable research and investigation. Numerous residue-oil conversion processes have been developed in which the goals are same, 1) create a more valuable, preferably distillate range hydrocarbon product; and 2) concentrate the contaminates such as sulfur, nitrogen, phosphorous, metals and asphaltenes into a form (coke, heavy coker residue, FCC slurry oil) for removal from the refinery stream. Well known and accepted practice in the refining industry is to increase the reaction severity (elevated temperature and pressure) to produce hydrocarbon products that are lighter and more purified, increase catalyst life times and remove sulfur, nitrogen, phosphorous, metals and asphaltenes from the refinery stream.
It is also well known in these processes that the nature of the feedstock has a significant influence upon the products produced, catalyst life, and ultimately the economic viability of the process. In a representative technical paper Residual-Oil Hydrotreating Kinetics for Graded Catalyst Systems: Effects of Original and Treated Feedstocks, is stated that “The results revealed significant changes in activity, depending on the feedstock used for the tests. The study demonstrates the importance of proper selection of the feedstocks used in the performance evaluation and screening of candidate catalyst for graded catalyst systems for residual-oil hydrotreatment.” From this one skilled in the art would understand that the conditions required for the successful hydroprocessing of atmospheric residue are not applicable for the successful hydroprocessing of vacuum residue which are not applicable for the successful hydroprocessing of a visbreaker residue, and so forth. Successful reaction conditions depend upon the feedstock. For this reason modern complex refineries have multiple hydroprocessing units, each unit being targeted on specific hydrocarbon stream with a focus on creating desirable and valuable light hydrocarbons and providing a product acceptable to the next downstream process.
A further difficulty in the processing of heavy oil residues and other heavy hydrocarbons is the inherent instability of each intermediate refinery stream. One of skill in the art understands there are many practical reasons each refinery stream is handled in isolation. One such reason is the unpredictable nature of the asphaltenes contained in each stream. Asphaltenes are large and complex hydrocarbons with a propensity to precipitate out of refinery hydrocarbon streams. One of skill in the art knows that even small changes in the components or physical conditions (temperature, pressure) can precipitate asphaltenes that were otherwise dissolved in solution. Once precipitated from solution, asphaltenes can quickly block vital lines, control valves, coat critical sensing devices (i.e. temperature and pressure sensors) and generally result in the severe and very costly disruption and shut down of a unit or the whole refinery. For this reason it has been a long-standing practice within refineries to not blend intermediate product streams (such as atmospheric residue, vacuum residue, FCC slurry oil, etc. . . . ) and process each stream in separate reactors.
In summary, since the announcement of the MARPOL standards reducing the global levels of sulfur in HMFO, refiners of crude oil have not undertaken the technical efforts to create a low sulfur substitute for HMFO. Despite the strong governmental and economic incentives and needs of the international marine shipping industry, refiners have little economic reason to address the removal of environmental contaminates from HMFOs. Instead the global refining industry has been focused upon generating greater value from each barrel of oil by creating light hydrocarbons (i.e. diesel and gasoline) and concentrating the environmental contaminates into increasingly lower value streams (i.e. residues) and products (petroleum coke, HMFO). Shipping companies have focused on short term solutions, such as the installation of scrubbing units, or adopting the limited use of more expensive low sulfur marine diesel and marine gas oils as a substitute for HMFO. On the open seas, most if not all major shipping companies continue to utilize the most economically viable fuel, that is HMFO. There remains a long standing and unmet need for processes and devices that remove the environmental contaminants (i.e. sulfur, nitrogen, phosphorous, metals especially vanadium and nickel) from HMFO without altering the qualities and properties that make HMFO the most economic and practical means of powering ocean going vessels. Further there remains a long standing and unmet need for IMO compliant low sulfur (i.e. 0.5% wt. sulfur) or ultralow (0.10% wt. sulfur) HMFO that is also compliant with the bulk properties required for a merchantable ISO 8217 HMFO.